Source
The Irish Times
Summary
The article highlights how advanced chatbots struggle badly with the Irish language (Gaeilge)—a stark reminder of persistent gaps in AI systems. While AI tools handle common European languages with ease, asking them to converse or translate into Irish produces jumbled pronunciation, random spelling, misinterpretation, or bizarre outputs. The author sees this as symptomatic: AI models often neglect smaller or less commercially profitable languages. For minority and indigenous languages, ensuring AI support is not optional but crucial for cultural preservation, representation, and equitable digital inclusion.
Key Points
- Chatbots like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini performed very poorly when asked to speak in Irish: pronunciation errors, mis-translations, confusion with Scots Gaelic.
- The mismatch highlights that AI models are biased toward well-resourced languages and neglect minority ones.
- AI’s “knowledge” is constrained by available training data—less data means poorer performance.
- For languages like Irish, this has real stakes: cultural expression, educational access, digital equity.
- Improving AI support for Irish (and other underrepresented languages) requires intentional investment and training on local, high-quality data.
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